American - Smithsonian Institution

such kolaches for a suitor, a young woman
was showing off her abihty as a homemaker.
Years ago, when Albert Tomesh was courting
Regina Uchytil, the girl worked for hours
preparing a plate of pastries to serve him. As
a prank her mischievous brothers tried to
embarrass her by swapping her plate of per-
fect pastries for poorly shaped ones.
During Prohibition, federal agents har-
rassed Czech gardeners by claiming that the
poppies were being used to produce opium.
Many people gave up their gardens and
grudgingly began to purchase imported seeds.
Others were more daring; they continued to
cultivate the flowers in carefully hidden
patches behind their barns. Although poppies
are no longer cultivated, kolaches are still an
important part of the local culture. In the
1970s, Heugen began celebrating an annual
Czech-American festival. The festivities begin
with a parade led by a truck with a giant
model of a poppy-seed kolach.
Geese are another important element of
Czech-American culture in Heugen. The egg-
white sheen that coats kolaches is often
applied with the homemade goose-feather
brushes that hang in the Tomesh family's
kitchens. Like many Czechs, the Tomesh
family kept geese until recently. In late
autumn, the geese were a major source of
meat and, of course, feathers. To pass the
time while plucking the soft down from feath-
ers, neighbors sometimes gathered for winter
"stripping bees" — community events that
included storytelling, singing, and a "big
lunch" at the evening's end.
Sometimes, however, family members
were required to pluck a pile of down as part
of their household chores. Joe Tomesh recalls
how, in the 1930s, he hated this particular
task. "I was one of the outlaws at home.
Mother had a hundred geese, and we had to
strip a big pile of feathers every day." Rather
than put them in piles, Joe stuffed most of his
quota in his pockets and later hid them in a
snow bank. When the feathers appeared in
the spring, "Mother wondered where they
came from. They were there for the birds to
make nests." His sisters were more diligent:
the down pillows and comforters they
brought to their marriages are now family
heirlooms.
Joe and his brother John did, however,
love music. The Hrdlicka, Soukup, and Subrt
families each had dance bands that played
regularly in local taverns and the spacious
hall built by Heugen's chapter of the Zapadni
Ceskobratrska Jednota (Western Bohemian
Fraternal Association). Other neighbors, like
Joe Sperl, played the accordion at house par-
ties, and everyone loved to get together to
sing favorite songs like "Louka zelend,
Baniska" and "Svestkovd alej^
Everyone also loved to dance, especially
the polka. The polka is a quick-paced dance
for two partners, based on a hop and three
short paces. Originally from northern Bohe-
mia along the Polish border, the polka
became fashionable among Prague's upper
class in the 1830s, caught on in Paris a decade
later, and soon spread throughout the world.
Polka bands emerged wherever Czech Amer-
icans settled, and they frequently entertained
crowds well beyond their ethnic community.
In America in the 1920s, regional bands led
by Romy Gosz and "Whoopee John" Wilfahrt
forged a new Czech-American polka style that
became popular among the Tomesh family
and their neighbors through records, radio
broadcasts, and barnstorming performances.
Like kolaches stuffed with poppy seeds and
pillows stuffed with goose down, the polka
became intrinsic to the Czech-American
experience.
This experience is slowly evolving.
Feather-stripping bees disappeared along
with subsistence agriculture, kolaches are
heated up in microwaves, and polka music is
now found on compact discs. But to the
Tomesh familj' and millions of Americans
like them — in Heugen, Wisconsin; New
Prague, Minnesota; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Abie,
Nebraska; Dayton, Ohio; and Ennis, Texas —
poppies and polkas, along with family,
church, and club affairs, are expressive sym-
bols of Czech-American folk cultural identity
that contribute to the cultural pluralism of
their respective communities.
"
JAMES P. LEARY
is a Faculty Associate
in the Folklore
Program at the
University of
Wisconsin and an
Affiliated Folklorist
with the Wisconsin
Folk Museum, Mount
Horeb. Portions of this
essay draw upon field
research with the
Tomesh family in
1991 for the Festival
of American Folklife.